2015
Making Amends: Healing from Individual and Collective Trauma and Loss
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The bloody photos from East Jerusalem triggered memories of violence at home. Resisting state violence can’t be separated from personal healing.
Articles
The Twin Ghosts of Slavery and the Nakba: The Roots that Connect Ferguson and Palestine
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Returning to face the violence at the root of a nation state connects the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the struggle for Black liberation in the United States. By squarely turning to face how the past lives in the present of both countries, we can move toward reckoning with the root cause of racialized violence in both the Israel and the United States.
2014
A Ritual Dismantling of Walls: Healing from Trauma through the Jewish Days of Awe
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With their focus on the fragility of walls, the High Holy Days create space for us to dismantle psychological barriers that no longer serve us.
Books
Challenging Christian Hegemony in the United States
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Reading Paul Kivel’s groundbreaking book Living in the Shadow of the Cross is by turns invigorating and overwhelming for exactly the same reason—he is shining a spotlight on the often unnoticed but pervasive system of Christian domination in the United States.
Books
The Politics of Jewish Healing
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Penny Rosenwasser’s new book is powerful because it goes beyond explaining how internalized Jewish oppression operates to argue that we need to understand and heal from internalized oppression in order to move toward liberation, build coalitions, and stop enacting trauma on other people, particularly Palestinians.
2013
Queering Palestinian Solidarity Work
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Wendy Elisheva Somerson reviews Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman.
Activism
An End to Easy Answers: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s New Memoir
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Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore describes decades of queer activism in her new memoir, which is often scarring, startling, and never easy. But Sycamore confronts the problems in her life with real feeling, showing that emotion—if genuine—can often break us out of the corporate-sponsored numbness which so inundates our culture.
Articles
Mapping a Jewish Activist Future: A Review of Nepon’s Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue
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How can we create space for friction and dissent from within Jewish institutions, such as the Jewish Federation or Hillel?
Activism
Revealing the Truth Behind the Rainbow: Seattle’s Anti-Pinkwashing Success
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As a queer anti-Occupation Jew living in Seattle, I was part of the coalition that worked to get the Seattle LGBT commission to cancel the pinkwashing event, “Rainbow Generations: Building New LGBTQ Pride & Inclusion in Israel,” sponsored by Arthur Slepian’s organization, A Wider Bridge. In response to Slepian’s article, “An Inconvenient Truth: The Myths of Pinkwashing,” I want to clarify why we worked to cancel the event and counter his misinformation about pinkwashing.
Articles
Turning to the Past to Envision a Different Future: Family Accountability in Eliaichi Kimaro’s “A Lot Like You”
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When I saw Eliaichi Kimaro’s documentary A Lot Like You premier at the Seattle International Film Festival this year, one of my first responses to this moving and complex film was to recognize it as a model for a personal and family accountability process. The film brings to life the complicated, messy, beautiful, and liberatory process of addressing harm and seeking healing within a family context.
2011
Fear and Consequences: Healing from Jewish Historical Trauma
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Centuries of persecution and genocide have left many Jews so fearful that we see ourselves always and forever as victims, which blinds us to our role in the current oppression of Palestinians. As anti-Occupation Jews, we honor the legacy of Jewish resistance when we consciously choose solidarity over fear.
2010
The Intersection of Anti-Occupation and Queer Jewish Organizing
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As a queer Jew who is deeply critical of the Israeli government and deeply inspired by Jewish ritual, I have a deep desire for both political and spiritual fulfillment.